Those who export survive, while those who work on the domestic market continue to suffer the worst damage. In any case, 2014 will not be the year of recovery for Italian companies, unless action is taken – at European and national level – to reactivate public investment. This is what the Business Economists Group (Gei) claims in its latest Conjunctural Observatory, which also provides a pessimistic estimate on the trend of the Italian GDP in 2013: according to the report, the recession will be 2%, a worse figure than those provided by Istat (-1,8%), OECD (-1,9%) and Prometeia (-1,8%).
"I consumption they will not recover next year – explains to FIRSTonline Alessandra Lanza, president of the Gei -, therefore the productions that will continue to suffer the most will be those linked to the internal market: primarily construction, but also related sectors, such as furniture and household appliances, or food. The sectors that export the most, such as mechanics, or non-cyclical sectors, such as pharmaceuticals, are in a better situation”.
In particular, it is the companies participating in the Observatory that are concerned the weakness of infrastructure investments, more than halved from 1990 to today. A trend that has severely penalized companies active in public works, but not only. In addition to the construction sector, the combined effect of low investments and weak demand has also damaged the energy and telecommunications sectors.
How to break the vicious circle? According to Lanza, “first of all it would be necessary to extend and make it more accessible investment clause, putting out the envelope with respect to the calculation of the deficit all infrastructural investment operations, also in information technology, which can serve as a driving force to restart the economy. On the other hand, a change in general policy would also be needed: not a relaxation, but an actualization. More than 20 years have passed since Maastricht, we have to ask ourselves if those criteria are still valid and if they can accompany us on a path of growth”.
Still, it doesn't all depend on Brussels. This is demonstrated by the trend of residential renovation, the only component of the building sector which – thanks to incentives and eco-bonuses – did not record a heavy decline in 2013. But tax breaks alone are not enough. For this reason, business economists reiterate the need to restart public investment also at the level of local authorities, which today have a theoretically available 5 billion euro in cash, but effectively blocked by the Stability Pact.
“The subject is delicate, because of course we don't want the budgets of local authorities to go out of control, it would be a disaster – continues Lanza -. However, the situation must be unblocked: we need to go back to investing, but with clear and transparent rules. It often happened that funding was given for investments that were never carried out: it should be mandatory to account for the actual realization of the works. More than a general revision of the Stability Pact, a modification of the clauses would be needed. When a local authority receives funding to carry out a work, it must be punished if it does not respect the deadlines. For example, by withdrawing the entire loan”.
